A common power transmission network can be viewed as having three (3) main segments. A distribution access network of medium voltage power lines, configured in a loop and several miles in length, connects a standard power substation to an area of homes and businesses. At various points on the loop, step down transformers provide a series of 110-240 V low voltage access lines, depending on the country, to a small number of homes and/or businesses. At the end of each one of these lines, a meter or meters is typically present for each electricity customer served by that line. On the other side of each meter is a typical in-home or in-building electricity distribution network, which is contained inside a home or business.
Currently, Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) based communication methods are available and used in various types of mediums, both wired and wireless, such as power line communications networks and telephone line networks. It is well established that phone line networks, like power line networks, are a suitable high speed communication channel for FDM based systems. See, for example, HPNA 2.0 Specification, October 1999, http://www.homepna.org.
Currently, a single, separate network interface adapter is required to establish an interface for each available communications media network. If interfaces to several communications media types are desired, several single network interfaces must be used, which increases overall power consumption, space occupied by communications network components and cost of operation. In addition, it is not possible, using currently available network interface adapters, to dynamically switch between or among several available communications media types for establishing a network interface to each of the individual media. Further, current network interfaces adapters do not readily allow for establishing a plurality of network interfaces using a plurality of available communications media types, including power line and telephone networks, such that the data transmission performance can be optimized.
Therefore, there is a need for a low cost, low power consumption, compact, flexibly operable and reconfigurable communications network interface adapter that can provide for interfacing with a plurality of communications network media types, which include at least a power line communications network and a telephone link network, and that can perform the required data signal processing to provide that communications events can occur on one or more of the media types separately or simultaneously.